If I remember correctly I have mentioned my aversion to the way the Texas local TV stations handle weather events during prime time TV.I have lost count of the number of times, fully aware of a storm danger, turned on the TV to watch a specific show, like LOST, and have it ruined because the Doppler Radar has spotted a small cell that has the potential of rotating and maybe producing heavy rain, hail, wind or even a tornado.
There'd be a loud chiming noise, boink boink boink and then a repeating over and over again crawl across the bottom of the screen telling me that some distant, from me, location was having a storm. When the crawl would let up another sound effect would indicate the same info was now in a graphic at the upper left.
This cycle would repeat and then suddenly the entire screen would say Breaking Weather News, or something like that, with a sound effect, and even though it was dire enough to interrupt, it was not dire enough to get right to it. Then the weather guy, Worst Offender, Pete Delkus on ABC's affiliate WFAA-TV, going all bug-eyed and excited, to report the same information we'd been reading. Only with images. Of course, we are told we will return to regular programming, as soon as this life saving information was relayed, but not before being told that this has been a WFAA-TV Special Weather Report and being assured, that should events warrant it, Pete would be back with another interruption.
Now, I have previously said I believe the local TV Weather Warnings may kill more people than they save. Usually, if you are watching TV, you are already safe. During the killer Fort Worth Tornado, of March 2000, a kid ran out to his pickup to try to get it under cover, likely worried, due to seeing dire warnings on the TV. He was killed by a baseball size chunk of hail.
So, last night I saw a glimmer of hope that maybe my whining about this has been heard. While watching I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here!, last night, a storm was brewing in the Hood County zone, heavy winds blowing across Lake Granbury, big chunks of hail. The show I was watching was on NBC affiliate KXAS-TV, which relayed the info about a dangerous storm brewing in Hood County with a silent subtle small crawl across the lower screen. It repeated a few times, then was replaced by a subtle graphic in the upper left.
I thought, now this is the way to do this. Totally non-obtrusive, but providing the info, including where to go if you needed more details. So, I was DVRing the show I was watching, so that I could fast forward through it. When I caught up to it being live, I switched over to ABC's The Bachelorette, on the WFAA-TV station where the notorious Pete Delkus lurks, ever waiting to get on air live with a dire weather report.
Well. I can not tell you how happy I was to see WFAA doing a version of what KXAS was doing, not as subtle, but also with no sound effects. I did see Pete Delkus pop on screen during a commercial break to gleefully let the viewers know he'd have a lot of weather details for them later.
Has this problem been fixed? Previously I don't think they'd hesitate to interrupt a show like The Bachelorette or that Celebrity fiasco. Or was it understated, instead of overblown, due to it being a relatively minor storm taking place outside the D/FW Metroplex?
I may get my answer tonight. More storms are predicted.
That is the NBC weather crawl under Rod Blagojevich's wife Patty in the first picture. The second picture is the Pete Delkus-free ABC weather crawl.
